Mother of all traffic jams: Russian storm strands drivers for 3 days

MOSCOW — The snow came down hard Friday, more than 2 feet in places, the first big storm of the year. But in Russia, where the winters are long and hard, it was nothing out of the ordinary, it seemed.

Then some localities apparently decided on their own to close the exits on the M10 highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg, a 400-mile stretch.

The ensuing traffic jam — 100 miles long by some estimates and involving 10,000 vehicles — trapped some motorists for three days and forced senior Russian officials to go on television Monday to mollify the thousands of angry drivers.

Roadside cafes gouged those wanting sausages and loaves of bread, and the price of cigarettes was reported to have shot up tenfold.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in comments carried by the Russian news media, said the country was facing a transportation crisis and the blame could not be placed, at least not wholly, on the Russian winter.

“The elements are the elements, and similar incidents happen in all countries, especially in northern ones, but the question is in the organization efforts to end this situation,” Medvedev said, the Interfax news service reported.

The din of complaints in the news media and on social networks refocused attention on the fragile state of Russia’s roads. Years of underinvestment on Soviet-era infrastructure have left the M10, rarely free of traffic jams on the best of days, prone to nasty bottlenecks in several small towns that lack bypasses. “I left St. Petersburg on Friday and in three days have travelled around 200 kilometres,” or about 124 miles, one driver said on the radio station Kommersant-FM on Sunday evening.

“We called all night to the Ministry of Emergency Affairs in Moscow and in Tver,” the driver said. “Everyone said, ‘Guys, we know what’s happening, but we can’t help you with anything.”’

As the M10 gradually reopened Monday, Medvedev and his deputies discussed a flurry of initiatives, including mobilizing Russian military engineers to avoid similar traffic jams or to aid stranded drivers.

“Let’s say that this is not a European road — it’s kind of a Russian road, forested, dark and covered in snow,” Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said at a meeting with Medvedev on Monday. “So you can imagine the level of despair for some drivers.”

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